Small plant or simple/small flower? There are the rampant climbers 'Cooper's Burmese' and the Cherokee Rose (R. laevigata) for example. Oh, and there's the fragrant and noble 'Dupontii', which has milk-white near-single blooms and grayish foliage and makes a large self-supporting shrub, but I think I've seen it grown as a climber.
I think 'Pax' is as beautiful a rose as a person could ask for, while 'Moonlight' I love less, but that could be because I've never grown it well. 'Moonlight' is one of those roses the scent of which travels on the air.
I take it you're not interested in talking about double white roses, so will not wander off into this fascinating territory. I too have a weakness for white roses and for fragrance.

Lux, if I had acreage I would have a white garden too. Your ideas sound fantastic. We are in zones to different to compare as I was thinking of some teas and OGRs but realized they would not be good for you zone.
Susan

I purchased a "Camptonville Cemetery Noisette" at the Sacramento Cemetery sale. It just keeps blooming in part shade and seems disease free. I think it's going to grow large and hopefully climb into a nearby tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo of CC Noisette

AH! Mel collected that!! Wonderful.

I also thought of 'White Cecile Brunner.'

Jeri

After years of waiting for it to establish, 'Aimee Vibert' has become a beauty. Fragrant, too.

You rosies are such eloquent poets! How abt. Champney's Pink Cluster and Prosperity? they are fragrant and robust and tall and in my garden they never stop blooming, plus no BS and the chili-thrips don't bother them.... also white Summer Snow, Spice, Ducher....(smaller versions)....sally

I know what you mean. Fragrance is probably my number one criteria, and it's true that white flowers are often the most fragrant--thinking of jasmine and gardenia.

Nastarana smells wonderful.

The follwing might be too double for you, and I don't know what their health would be like for your area, but what about Marie Pavie or Clotilde Soupert?

Also I'm anxious to try Austin's Rosemoor, which is the palest pink, almost white and described as powerfully fragrant. But, again, that might be too fluffy for you since it resembles the old Centifolias.

C.C.Noisette looks wonderful!
I have Marie Pavie, and I won Fair Bianca at a raffle at the Old Rose Celebration.

Clothilde Soupert gets cloaked with p.m. here, otherwise I'd grow it.
white Cecille Brunner is very pretty and an attractive plant too, thanks for posting that photo Jeri.

I find some doubles to be as artless as singles, white Rose Of York comes to mind.

thanks all,
gee I'd really like to see more white Noisettes come into the market.

Lux.

Oh tell us all about Fair Bianca, please. That's on my try someday list.

Lux -- lobby the Sacramento Cemetery about Rose ville Noisette -- A dwarf.

Jeri

Have to 2nd or 3rd votes for Champneys, Prosperity & Nastarana.

Moonlight was very vigorous for me in a miserable overgrown shady bed in a miserable hot humid climate. Pax is beautiful & fragrant plus a sentimental old favorite.

A totally different growth habit, but Flocon de neige has tiny sprays of fragrant white flowers--looks like baby's breath.

I, too, love white roses! I have Prosperity, Jeanne d'arc, Moonlight, Spice, Ducher, and Kronprinzessan Viktoria. Prosperity is a wonderful, healthy rose with sprays of fragrant beautiful blooms. Moonlight is planted in a difficult to access portion of my garden and is in too much shade, but it still blooms pretty well. Only draw-back is that it is quite thorny and vigorous, but I love the single/semi-double blooms. Jeanne d'Arc is a remarkably fragrant, moderate grower that I really enjoy. Spice, and Ducher are healthy and easy care. Kronprinzessan is struggling to grow, so I will with-hold judgment on this rose.
Molly

Please compare Prosperity and Pax. Both are white hybrid musks but Prosperity is very easy to find and Pax is hard to find. Is Prosperity a better rose, more disease resistant? One source said that Pax had the larger bloom and another source said Prosperity did. I need some assistance.

Cath

Please compare Prosperity and Pax. Both are white hybrid musks but Prosperity is very easy to find and Pax is hard to find. Is Prosperity a better rose, more disease resistant? One source said that Pax had the larger bloom and another source said Prosperity did. I need some assistance.

Cath

jardinera, I did so want to try Jeanne d'Arc this year, but when I was shopping, I couldn't find anyone who had it.

Lux, do you have Jeanne d'Arc?

I think Katharina Zeimet is one of the starriest and prettiest. Fragrant, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Katharina Zeimet on Helpmefind

I don't know 'Prosperity', having been prejudiced against it early on by a comment that it hangs on to its old flowers. I seem to remember having seen it described as a big Floribunda. 'Pax' has a classic Hybrid Musk growth habit, similar to 'Cornelia' and 'Buff Beauty', that is, wide-growing and lax, and suitable for training as a small climber. It is a most elegant rose, the white blooms contrasting beautifully with the dark foliage and red new growth.
Well, you know whose side I'm on. I suppose it depends on what kind of a rose you want.

Hmm, well a mature Prosperity I know has creamy blushed buds that open into cream/white fragrant flowers in heavy sprays. I'm thinking of a plant that's in deep heavy soil & full sun & it's gorgeous in full bloom. very bushy, covered in fragrant flowers. That plant has strong upright growth for 3-4' then the canes stiffly arch.

I haven't had a Pax for long enough to get it to that "grown-up" stage--have one on order. The young plant I had before had pure white flowers, maybe not as full as Prosperity's, but at least as big & fragrant. I've ordered it again for sentimental reasons, as my grandmother planted it when it came out, like people planted Peace for THAT war's end. Plus, like you said, it's harder to find--Pickerings has it--so I'm trying to secure another while I can.

I have a Pax that has been growing in partial shade for 20 years. I love love the elegant blooms - the the petals seem to have more substance than some of my other roses. Living in CA, of course it decided to be a climber, and climbed 15 feet up our house! That was awkward, as it was planted in a bed below the front brick stairs - my DH built it an arch to arch over the stairs. When it got to the wall of the house it went up immediately. So, for a few years you had to walk under a rose bower to get to the front door.

A few years ago we had to cut it down to about 5 ft because the house was painted, and since then it has stayed a more respectable 7-8 feet tall, and about 6 wide. "Wide growing and lax" is a good description of its habit - mine is not dense, because of growing in the shade.

I don't know why, but this rose makes me happy every time I look at it - really. It has even tip rooted a baby rose (totally without my intervention or even knowledge). I can't wait to see what that one does!

Jackie

we are definately on the same page here, Lux. Suggest you venture into some of the species such as the fabulous R.helenae, the huge but gorgeous R.soulieana, Melissa has already mentioned the mannerly R.Dupontii and finally, who could possibly resist the little double white burnet roses. True though, a great white rose garden really does need acreage, if only so the wonderful 'Garland' and rampageous field rose, Splendens can be grown. Must also agree that Aimee Vibert is far, far superior to Madame Alfred. I dunno if it is hard to buy Lens roses in the US but he has bred some outstanding hybrid musks such as Pleine de Grace and the lovely Jaqueline Humery. Also, a vote for Snowgoose - althout it is an untidy rose and not easily trained, it has a wonderful fragrance and is still blooming away at my allotment (it meets a rampant Moonlight, over the shed porch). Mmmm, could go on at length about my beloved white roses (if I could only have one colour, I would always select small white sprays of roses to go with the gorgeous autumnalis flowering cherry and the vast array of apple blossom and ribes in my plot). White starry roses really are the tops (you can keep your frilly blooms and pointy HTs and if I wanted orange, I would have tithonias and dahlias - nothing is so heartbreakingly beautiful as a single five-petalled rose with a coronet of golden stamens)

I have few white roses, although I'll be receiving Devoniensis in a few days. Westside Rose Cream Tea, an excellent rose in many ways, is gone from my garden because for months the blooms, which were tiny at that point, were brown when they opened. I've never seen anything like it and hoped the rose would grow out of it, but no such luck. It's good news for Rosette Delizy, which it was crowding, and which now has room to be at its best.

Kronprinzession Viktoria von Preussen is my best white rose, an almost constant bloomer and completely disease free. I don't think I've given it enough room, but what else is new. Marie Pavie shows promise but is still rather young.

Among Vintage's latest releases, I think Comtesse de Rocquigny is stunning. HMF lists it as a light pink Bourbon, but in some of the pictures it looks like it fades to nearly white. It's also described as "white with salmon pink shading." It would probably look white from a distance.

If I had more room ...

Here is a link that might be useful: Comtesse de Rocquigny

Thank you Melissa, Bluegirl and Jacqueline for your endorsement of Pax. I had begun to think that since I had Prosperity that Pax would be redundant, or worse, inferior. I like that it was named Pax (Peace) for the end of the First World War and especially look forward to its fragrance.

Bluegirl, thank you for comparing the two. Although I have Prosperity, it is not very old. Now I know what I have to look forward to.

Cath

Hi Monarda,
So good to see you post. Hope Sandy didn't give you too much trouble. Both you and Labrea have been in my preyers. I hope that Labrea posts soon.
How is your garden?
All the best.
Jeannie

Thank you so much Jeannie --

We live not far from the water but up on a hill not too far from the Verazzano Narrows. I so feel sorry for the poor people in Staten Island and on the Jersey and Long Island barrier islands who lost everything. And also downtown Manhattan. The darkened skyline was so very sad looking, when we walked down to the pier to look. It reminded me of 9/11. There was noticeable debris -- chairs, and wooden boards washed up on the rocks, but people were fishing and jogging unconcernedly. Another walk -- to Sunset Park in the other direction --revealed the same unearthly sight of a darkened skyline and Statue of Liberty. But even there there were children on swings, as usual. Nor was Halloween affected.

For our part, we didn't lose power and our basement miraculously didn't flood. We had cleaned out the gutters, filled the bath tub, made chili and brownies and brought the houseplants plants inside. My shrubs and perennials in containers (many slated to be gifts for friends) stayed outside and weren't affected. An exception was my little plastic greenhouse that blew up to the top of the retaining wall, despite the cement block I had put in it to keep it down. Otherwise, our garden, an eternal work in progress, appreciated the rain very much.

Starting Tuesday, Verizon took away our cell-phone and internet for 48 hours. I suppose they needed the interchanges for other people. And there is no gas -- it was like a zombie movie. But one doesn't need a car here.

For the most part it was not the wind but the tidal surge in low areas and then the gas shortage that have been disruptive. The gas stations are still closed, but most subway lines are running. There is a nip in the air, though, and tomorrow we are going to have another storm.

Lux - I think you would like Lens hybrid musk Guirlande d'Amour - ( seed: Seagull x pollen: Rosa multiflora 'Nana' � Moonlight (hybrid musk, Pemberton, 1913).

Forms huge shrubs ( 8 feet tall ) - very fragrant and repeat flowering!

Here is a link that might be useful: Guirlande d'Amour on HMF